New Baby Name Trends: Moving Beyond B Names in Montana

I used to call it the decade of the "Bs". And it sure seemed like every girl born in the 1990s had a "B" for their first initial.

The proof came in the early 2000s, as those girls entered high school. When my broadcast team was covering girl's basketball games it was pretty tough on the play-by-play announcer, and statisticians, to keep all the Brittneys, Briannas, and Brookes straight. With some teams nearly half the teams would have a girl with a "B" name.

Not only has that trend run its course, but it appears the "B moms" want to go in an entirely different direction. And the trend to old-fashioned names, for both girls and boys in Montana and other states, shows no signs of slowing down.

Baby Central in the UK says that's because young parents are reaching out, because they can't imagine their kids with the same names as their parents.

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Traditional is "in"

Betway Insider did some recent research using Google Trends (I suppose for the folks wagering on this sort of thing in families) and they found traditional names are still the top choices.

Nationwide, there wasn't a "B" name in the girl's Top 15. Instead, the top pick was Scarlett, followed by other names that would have once been considered too "old sounding", like Olivia, Emma, Sofia, and even Evelyn.

For boys, it's Jack, Elijah, Liam, James and Oliver.

Montana naming like it's 1899

Montana was even expected to take this to the next level over the past year, with Google listing both "Olivia" and "Oliver" as the top picks for girls and boys here in the Treasure State.

For girls, Evelyn has still been in the Top 5, but is dropping in popularity, with other names like Charlotte and Eleanor as top picks.

Other boys' names in Montana have included top picks Henry, Theodore, and Wyatt.

At least a "B" name made the boy's list with "Brooks" in the Top 10.